Jia Wenhe wrote:Id and Superego are the innate balances in your psychology that keep you from being to unhappy and unsatisfied in terms of pleasure and desire, and making sure you also conform to a social norm.

I don't know anything about em so I can't really comment on them.

"Be on your Guard, Stand Firm in the Faith, Be Men of Courage, Be Strong, Do everything in Love" - Master Lee's School Motto-

I disagree entirely, I have many reasons why, and my neighbor will be one of my primary examples. He is probably about fifty years old now, has five kids all of which have graduated from high school, two of which have gone to missions. I would say that every one of his kids would probably be moderately successful in life. His wife is an honest woman, decent in heart and in thoughts, or at least she suppresses her negative thoughts and desires. He however is a pathetic human being; he cheats on his wife, often, and shows no signs of remorse for his actions. He looks down upon anyone who doesn’t attend church, including making efforts to ruin the reputations of his neighbors. He believes because he goes to church, every sin of his is forgiven. I imagine the only reasons why his wife is still with him, is because there church looks down upon divorce.

I have never liked this person, he called my brother and I, “satanic because we didn’t attend church, and we didn’t have gods blessing”. And he damn near disowned one of his children because he refused to go on a mission, instead of disowning his he told him he could no longer live under his roof.

I understand that not everyone is like this, but he is not a good person, regardless of his religion. And if I discovered he was allowed access to heaven, I would decline any offer given to me to join him in such a celestial place, because it wouldn’t be so celestial to me any more after that.

I am not Christian; I don’t even follow any religion or specific beliefs, besides my own. And for the most part I feel like I am a decent person. The majority of things I do are for others, and if I am given the opportunity to help someone, I usually take up on that opportunity to do so, if I feel the person is worth helping.

Perhaps the belief that you need to be Christian to be good is one of the reasons that I never could bring my self to follow that religion. Even though there have been many pressures to do so.

I don’t know or even honesty care if I go to heaven in the end, or if I am labeled a bad person, as long as I feel like I am a decent person, and some certain loved ones of mine feel that I am a good person. People are capable of being good as well as bad, and no church or religion should be able to label someone who cheats on his wife, or steals from those who need what little possessions they own, as good people.

Also known as Zhuge Xuanshi
"The problem with the gene pool is, there's no lifeguard."
-Steven Wright

Adherents to Christianity often forget that there was only ever one, single Christian: Christ himself. One can have faith in him, one can follow him, one can imitate him, and one can love him and do what one will; however, one can never be a Christian, for that would mean that one is Christ.

Having grown up in an extremely religious household and having utterly rejected the organized church (although I still retain a fondness for the richness and wisdom of the Bible from a poetic and humanistic viewpoint), I know that Christians believe people can be good only by believing in Christ, because in doing so they are saved in the eyes of God and doing God's will. However, I also know that there is nothing a mortal can do to be worthy of the saving grace, so to speak; it is a gift from God to the unworthy and sinful, etc, etc. So, technically, a Christian can only see other Christians as being good, even if they aren't "good" people. This is well-established by dogma, scripture, etc. Even Paul "praised" King Agrippa for his wisdom and implied goodness, but stopped short of considering him to be a good person; this was because Agrippa could not believe in Christ, etc.

Exclusivity is the nature of religion, and this exclusivity ranges from utter condemnation of others to the mere pitying of others' suffering.

I see religion as a guideline for the believer's way of life, perhaps in addition, even a sense of purpose in life. Religions teach beliefs, but do not dictate the goodness in an individual. Thus I do not believe one is "good" if he just happens to be Christian, or a believer in any other religion for that matter. Furthermore, faith and goodness are intangibles that are difficult to measure.

"Knowledge is not as important as imagination. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world" - Albert Einstein
"In the end, it's not the years in your life that counts. It's the life in your years." -Abraham Lincoln

Good and evil are both defined from each individual human’s perspective, and many things around us help to develop these definitions. As we grow up we learn that it is unacceptable to kill people, or to make people do things against their own will. This has absolutely nothing to do with religion, although in many cases people may learn some of their virtues from religions they interact with. In the end we make the choice as an individual and at no point does religion even have to exist for us to be “good” people.

I wouldn't say that this thread is an attack on Christianity...simply a questioning of whether Christianity is NECESSARY to be a good person. Does the Bible the Saint make?

I think Christians can and definitely are, in majority, good people. But I think that Christianity is simply a guideline for their life to make them better people...just as other religions do, just as self-beliefs do. And I've seen a share of Christians (as well as any other religion or non-religion) be evil.

James' right though; good and evil to me are just concepts...I only use them because they are common. To me, intent is what matters.

"For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution and our revolution is long overdue."— Margaret Cho

Wild-Eyes wrote:I think Christians can and definitely are, in majority, good people.

Yes I agreed that the majority of Christians are probably good people, and so are the majority of Muslim, Hindu, Budhist, Jewish, Taoist, Atheist, Pagan, Wiccan, Satanist, Elvis Impersonator and etc. So it is not neccessary to be a Christian to be a good person. However, I do tend to feel the sentiment of the creator of this thread that most Christians seem to think that they are better than everyone else in the term of moral values.

Most of my experience with Christian were mainly Vietnamese Christians, and on the whole most are pricks. They think little of non-Christians and never lets their childrens socialised with non-Christian that much. Even if you asked their daughters out on a date, they have to check that you're a Christian before allowing their daughter to go out with you. During a normal conversation not discussing anything religious whatsoever, most will tend to convert you. I was given 2 bibles only a few times visiting my Vietnamese Christians friends house to do homework during highschool.

Chu Liu Xiang wrote:IMO, religion is just another root of evil. Take the crusades, jihads, inquisitions, exoduses, holocausts, etc. for example. All needless wars that cause suffering just because of some religious differences.

I agree with Fragrant Chor here that religions itself are evil and that is the only think that I agree with communism. Religion virtually divided people into believer and non-believers and it forced people to do horrible things with some form of moral justictification. I am not saying that there were NO war before the comming of organised religions, but in those good old days where major organsed religions had not yet established it is very hard for any person to manipulate his/her people to start a war commits committed great act of barbarism. Now all those cynical religious leaders needed to do is called a Crussade, Jihad, and etc to basically justify the mass killing of innocents people.